Republic of China calendar | |||||||||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 中華民國曆 | ||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 中华民国历 | ||||||||||||||||
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Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 民國紀年 | ||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 民国纪年 | ||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | Republic [of China] year numbering system | ||||||||||||||||
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Gregorian full date | 2024年5月22日 |
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Gregorian all-numeric date | 2024-05-22 2024/05/22 |
ROC calendar | 113-05-22 113.05.22 |
National Standard Time of Taiwan | 20:46 下午 8:46 |
The Republic of China calendar, often shortened to the ROC calendar or the Minguo calendar, is a calendar used in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. The calendar uses 1912, the year of the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) in Nanjing, as the first year.
The ROC calendar follows the tradition of using the sovereign's era name and year of reign, as did previous Chinese dynasties. Months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar. The ROC calendar has been in wide use in the ROC since 1912, including in early official documents.
The ROC calendar is the official calendar used in Taiwan since 1945, and also adopted by Overseas Chinese and Taiwanese communities. Chorographies and historical research published in mainland China covering the period between 1912 and 1949 also use the ROC calendar.[1]
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Transcription
For those of you who are just starting to learn about the history of China in the first half of the 20th century, it can be a little bit confusing. So the goal of this video is really to give you an overview, to give you a scaffold, of the history of the first half of the 20th century in China. So as we go into the early 1900s, you have the end of imperial dynastic rule in China. This is a big deal. China has been ruled by various dynasties for multiple thousands of years. But as you get into the 1900s, the dynastic rule, in particular the Qing Dynasty, was getting weaker and weaker. It had suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the first Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 1800s. There was growing discontent amongst the opposition that the dynasty, that the emperors, were not modernizing China enough. Remember, this is the early 1900s. The rest of the world was becoming a very, very modern place. China in the 1800s had suffered at the hands of Western powers who were essentially exerting their own imperial influence in China. Many people felt that this was because China was not as modernized economically, politically, technologically as it needed to be. And so you fast-forward to 1911. You have what is known as the Wuchang Uprising, which led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. By 1912, a Republic of China was established in Nanjing. So Nanjing right over here was where it was established. Beijing was, of course, the seat of dynastic rule in China. And the first provisional president of the Republic of China was Dr. Sun Yat-sen, right over here. And he actually did not directly participate in this final uprising that finally led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. He was actually in Denver at the time, Denver, Colorado. But he was a leading or one of the leading figures in the run up to this uprising, one of the leading figures who was providing opposition and had tried multiple times to overthrow the dynasty. Now along with Sun Yat-sen, he was essentially in cahoots with Yuan Shikai, who was a general in the old dynasty. And he has his own fascinating history. And Sun Yat-sen struck a deal with Yuan Shikai, who was very politically ambitious. Yuan Shikai said, hey, if I can get the emperor Puyi, who was the last emperor of China, if I can get him to officially abdicate, I want to become the president. So Sun Yat-sen agrees to this. So Yuan Shikai becomes the president of the Republic of China. But that wasn't enough for him. He declares himself emperor in 1915, which you could imagine did not make many people happy because they were tired of having emperors. And by 1916, he abdicates and he passes away, actually. And this actually begins a period of extremely fragmented rule for China. Even under imperial rule, the Chinese military was not one consolidated body. The military was controlled by various warlords in various regions that all had allegiance to the emperor. Once you have Yuan Shikai abdicating and then dying in 1916, and even prior to that, when he declared himself emperor, people did not want to pledge allegiance to Yuan Shikai. And so you had what is known as the beginning of the Warlord Era in China. And this is a fragmented period where you did not have any centralized leadership. This map over here shows kind of the rough picture of what the Warlord Era looked like. Each of these regions were controlled by a different warlord who was in charge of a different military. When this was going on during the Warlord Era, especially as we go back to the early '20s, in 1921 in particular, Sun Yat-sen hasn't given up. He goes to the south in Guangzhou and sets up, essentially, a revolutionary government, essentially a desire from there to try to consolidate power in China again and reestablish the Republic of China. So he goes there. But unfortunately he passes away in 1925 from cancer. And the hands or the power of the movement that he started, which is now being referred to as the Kuomintang-- Let me write that down. Essentially, the power there passes on to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. And Chiang Kai-shek, the reason why we say the power essentially goes to him is because he was in control of the major part of the military forces of the Kuomintang. And this is essentially the very nascent early stages of what would essentially be the Chinese Civil War because in the period from 1921 until Sun Yat-sen's death, you actually had a lot of collaboration between the Chinese nationalists, the Kuomintang, and the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. They were trying to collaborate in order to think about how China would unify. But then once Sun Yat-sen dies and the power of the Kuomintang essentially goes into the hands of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he starts to consolidate power. And right from the get-go, he doesn't antagonize the communists. But by 1927, he's starting to consolidate, he's starting to merge these various factions in the rest of China. So he's able to consolidate power. But he also starts to go after the communists. So Chiang Kai-shek, by '27, also starts to go after the communists. And the communists are saying, hey, we are the ones that really represent the spirit of what Sun Yat-sen represented, while the Kuomintang under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek said, no, no, no. We represent what Sun Yat-sen represented when he first established the Republic of China. And so in 1927, you have the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. This is when the Kuomintang, as part of its efforts to consolidate power, not only tries to consolidate power of the warlords, but also goes after the Communist Party. Now while all of this is happening, as we get into the early 1930s, Japan once again is trying to exert its imperial, its military, might on the Chinese mainland. They had already captured Formosa, which is now known as Taiwan, and Korea during the first Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 1800s. And then in 1931, the Japanese start to encroach on Manchuria. And this would essentially become a multi-year occupation and infiltration of Japan into China. And this continues all the way until 1937, when it becomes an official all-out war between the Japanese and the Chinese. And I have a map here that shows kind of the maximum Japanese control over this period. And so in east Asia between the Chinese and the Japanese, World War II was really just part of the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese had already encroached on the mainland of China well before World War II had officially begun. Now while all this is happening, Japan is encroaching into Manchuria, in 1934, you have to remember, the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-shek is going after the communists. And in 1934, he almost has them, or he does. The communists are nearly defeated. They're surrounded by the Nationalist Party. And this becomes what is a fairly famous event in Chinese history, the famous Long March, where the Chinese Communist Party, their military, is marched through extremely tough terrain all the way to the northwest of China. So this right over here is a map of the Long March. The Chinese Communist Party seemed to be on the ropes here in 1934. And it was during this Long March that Mao Zedong really started to exert and show leadership. The leadership during this Long March, during this retreat to the northwest of China, is really what allowed Mao Zedong to eventually take control of the Chinese Communist Party. Now as we fast forward, we know that the Sino-Japanese War-- you could view this as one theater, eventually, of World War II-- eventually the US goes in on the side of the Allies against Japan after Pearl Harbor. And then in 1945, you have the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons, which essentially ends the Pacific theater. It's defeat for Japan, and Japan has lost World War II. And at this point, full-scale civil war between the two parties break out again. The Civil War started in 1927, and then it kept continuing. But then once there was a common enemy in Japan that was clearly aggressively trying to take over more and more of China's people, resources, exert its imperial influence, then you had the two parties kind of go into a low-grade war and say, hey, we need to fight these Japanese. But once World War II ended in 1945, once the Japanese were defeated, then you had full-scale civil war break out again between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. And this is probably one of the biggest comebacks in history. This was the Chinese Communist Party that in 1934 and 1935 looked like they were on the ropes. They were forced into, essentially, retreat. They were able to come back. And in 1949-- and there's a lot of theories as to why they were able to pull this off. That they were able to get much more of the support from the rural population. They were more savvy about getting support generally than the Kuomintang. But we could talk about that in a future video. But by 1949, they were able to defeat Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, force the Kuomintang to retreat to Taiwan, establish government in Taiwan. And ever since then, you had the establishment by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 of the People's Republic of China.
Calendar details
The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the nascent Republic of China effective 1 January 1912 for official business, but the general populace continued to use the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The status of the Gregorian calendar was unclear between 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords each supported by foreign colonial powers. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to fight over northern China, but the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government controlled southern China and used the Gregorian calendar. After the Kuomintang reconstituted the Republic of China on 10 October 1928, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted, effective 1 January 1929. The People's Republic of China has continued to use the Gregorian calendar since 1949.[2]
Despite the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the numbering of the years was still an issue. The Chinese monarchical tradition was to use the monarch's era name and year of reign. One alternative to this approach was to use the reign of the semi-legendary Yellow Emperor in the third millennium BC to number the years.[2] In the early 20th century, some Chinese republicans began to advocate such a system of continuously numbered years, so that year markings would be independent of the monarch's era name. (This was part of their attempt to de-legitimize the Qing dynasty.)
When Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of the Republic of China, he sent telegrams to leaders of all provinces and announced the 13th day of 11th month of the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor's reign (corresponding to 1 January 1912) to be the first year of the Republic of China.[2] The original intention of the Minguo calendar was to follow the monarchical practice of naming the years according to the number of years the monarch had reigned, which was a universally recognizable event in China. Following the establishment of the Republic, hence the lack of a monarch, it was then decided to use the year of the establishment of the current regime. This reduced the issue of frequent change in the calendar, as no Chinese emperor ruled more than 61 years in Chinese history – the longest being the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled from 1662 to 1722 (Kangxi 61). (Qianlong Emperor abdicated in 1795, i.e. Qianlong 60, but the reign name of Qianlong is still used unofficially until his death in 1799 i.e. Qianlong 64.)
As most Chinese era names consisted of two Chinese characters, 民國 (Mínguó, "Republic") is employed as an abbreviation of 中華民國 (Zhōnghuá Mínguó, "Republic of China"). The first year, 1912, is called 民國元年 (Mínguó Yuánnián) and 2024, the "113th year of the Republic" is 民國一百一十三年, 民國113年, or simply 113.
Based on National Standards of the Republic of China CNS 7648: Data Elements and Interchange Formats—Information Interchange—Representation of Dates and Times (similar to ISO 8601), year numbering may use the Gregorian system as well as the ROC era. For example, 22 May 2024 may be written 2024-05-22 or ROC 113-05-22.
The ROC era numbering happens to be the same as the numbering used by the Juche calendar of North Korea, because its founder, Kim Il Sung, was born in 1912. The years in Japan's Taishō era (30 July 1912 to 25 December 1926) also coincide with those of the ROC era.
In addition to the ROC's Minguo calendar, Taiwanese continue to use the lunar Chinese calendar for certain functions such as the dates of many holidays, the calculation of people's ages, and religious functions.
Arguments for and against
The use of the ROC era system extends beyond official documents. Misinterpretation is more likely in the cases when the prefix (ROC or 民國) is omitted.
There have been legislative proposals by political parties of the Pan-Green Coalition that support Taiwanese independence, such as the Democratic Progressive Party, to formally abolish the ROC calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar.[3]
Relation to the Gregorian calendar
To convert any Gregorian calendar year (1912 and after) to the ROC calendar, subtract 1911. For example, last year (2023) was 112; this year (2024) is 113; and next year (2025) will be 114.
ROC era | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AD | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 |
ROC era | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
AD | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 |
ROC era | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
AD | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 |
ROC era | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 |
AD | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 |
ROC era | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 |
AD | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 |
ROC era | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 |
AD | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 |
ROC era | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 |
AD | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 |
ROC era | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 |
AD | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 |
ROC era | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 |
AD | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 |
ROC era | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 |
AD | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
ROC era | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105 | 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 |
AD | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
ROC era | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 117 | 118 | 119 | 120 |
AD | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 |
ROC era | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 130 |
AD | 2032 | 2033 | 2034 | 2035 | 2036 | 2037 | 2038 | 2039 | 2040 | 2041 |
ROC era | 131 | 132 | 133 | 134 | 135 | 136 | 137 | 138 | 139 | 140 |
AD | 2042 | 2043 | 2044 | 2045 | 2046 | 2047 | 2048 | 2049 | 2050 | 2051 |
ROC era | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 145 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 150 |
AD | 2052 | 2053 | 2054 | 2055 | 2056 | 2057 | 2058 | 2059 | 2060 | 2061 |
See also
References
- ^ 廖盛春 (2007). "方志若干理论观点与编纂实践相悖的思考" [Thinking of Several Theory Views and Practice of Compiling Inconsistent Local Records]. 中国地方志. doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-672X.2007.01.007.
- ^ a b c Endymion Wilkinson (2000). Chinese History: A Manual. Harvard Univ Asia Center. pp. 184–185. ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4.
- ^ Jimmy Chuang (25 February 2006). "Taiwan may drop idiosyncratic Republican calendar". Taipei Times. Retrieved 5 September 2017.